The argument is that GW2 circumvents "p2win" buy allowing people to buy gems with gold.

For example, I believe buying 800 gem armor with gold is actually cheaper than the high end cultural armor, (can someone do the math and verify?)

The argument is that GW2 allows you to complete your end-game goals for cash. People keeping muddying the waters with what "p2win" is. P2Win goes beyond a player-vs-player mindset. Its just viewed as more "unfair" because it has a direct effect on a competitive environment. Theoretically there is no competition in PvE, there are however, personal conditions for 'victory' in one player that don't necessarily impact other players. Completing an item, getting a Legendary. None of these impact other players in a direct way, affecting their own personal conditions for victory in the PvE game. This is the essence of "p2win." To pay to meet whatever victory conditions you've set for yourself.

They do have an indirect effect, which is that they affect game-play development.

The entire point of the argument against any form of micro-transaction game is that it encourages developers design in game-play by encouraging that player tithes be coerced through micro-transactions. The Candy Crush models. The Smurf Village model. "Don't want to wait 24 hour to make progress? Buy some!"

Its the same logic that drives injecting multi-player into single-player games, because multi-player pulls in the player group that enjoys multi-player as well as justifies further expense in map-packs that all your friends and you have to buy to play together, as well as the Live or Plus subscription if you're on a console. Not to mention the weapon lockers/crates/boxes what have you, which short-cut an arduous weapon/skill unlocking system that is designed to be arduous to encourage micro-ts.

If only certain conditions are going to drive people to paying cash for gems, that's behavior any business person wants to encourage.

Edited by MazingerZ, 02 April 2014 - 03:10 PM.

2

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

"This is the essence of 'p2win'. To pay to meet whatever victory conditions you've set for yourself."

I completely disagree with that definition. You are not obligated to pay anything: if you can acquire any item by simply playing the game, then it is hard to say it is 'pay to win'.

You might still have a case if the effort required to get the item via playing was SO huge that nobody would ever do it, but that isn't obviously true here.

BTW, by your definition, a better example of P2W would be a paid expansion, assuming you couldn't buy it via gems.

Note that I'm not necessarily a huge fan of cash shops, but as a realist I'm willing to accept them, as long as they stick to items that are cosmetic or simply provide convenience. If we start blurring the line of what P2W means, we'll end up in a worse state. Because cash shops aren't going away from MMOs, even ones with subs.

I completely disagree with that definition. You are not obligated to pay anything: if you can acquire any item by simply playing the game, then it is hard to say it is 'pay to win'.

Let's say a developer releases two new weapons in an FPS. These weapons are clearly balanced in that they are counters to one another. However, they are better weapons than what's available to players prior to their release. Now, you can unlock that weapon immediately with money or you can slough it out and "simply play the game" to unlock it.

However, playing the game will take time, and your progress will be undercut by the fact that you will incur more losses and fewer kills playing against players who purchased the weapon outright. The same thing happens in any game with skill unlocks when you're playing against players who have more unlocks than you do as a noob.

You're not obligated to pay for anything. You can acquire the item by simply playing the game. Is that P2W?

You accept the reality of cash shops, but you deny the reality that it affects how game-play is developed?

Isn't the RMAH in D3 and its rise in popularity following its removal proof of what happens when you're tying monetary returns to game-play? Near as I can tell, once the RMAH was removed, they were free to tweak in-game rewards in a way that wasn't designed to drive players to the RMAH and engage in micro-transactions.

No one is arguing against cash shops, but when you create a path for money to affect game-play progression, how it is developed will be tied to revenue generation. Of course you're not obligated to pay, no one likes an obligation. They are not shooting for that. They are shooting to convert a portion of the populace into revenue generators by playing on their eventual lack of patience with how the game is rewarding them.

Now, this may not affect you, but what happens when the developer reaches the point where they want people like you to start paying and it affects the game-play you enjoy... that to get the same level of enjoyment, the same level of reward you enjoyed, you now have to pay the piper?

As much as you can scoff and say "I'd stop playing" that's kind of not the point. The point is, should game development really be driven by the concept of making free game-play just unrewarding enough to make people come back to the cash shop.... Or should you be paying the developers directly for developing game-play you enjoy?

Edited by MazingerZ, 02 April 2014 - 04:06 PM.

0

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

I completely disagree with that definition. You are not obligated to pay anything: if you can acquire any item by simply playing the game, then it is hard to say it is 'pay to win'.

It's not about obligation.

"We think that’s important, because it lets more players participate on a level playing field, whether they use their free time or their disposable income to do it." A stated design objective.

So are cosmetics the end game? That's probably the argument that needs to happen and in my opinion they are. It's never a level playing field when player A can just whip out a VISA and race player B who is instead putting in time to hit the cosmetic end game of GW2. They know it's easier and more tempting to just buy the gems and get it done right then and there because it's set up that way.

To buy legendary in legal way you need quite a lot of money. I would say huge amount. Also there is pretty much no difference in buy gems to by legendary vs pay someone so she/he get this legendary for you.
If someone want something here and now and have enough money to buy for it, he/she can get it.

Still who cares.

World is unfair.
If some ppl want to pay to pretty much not play the game good for them.\
And yes 800 gems < cost of T3 (for which we need to add cost of 6 transmutations too)

Fundamentally flawed premise. The threshold for "cashing in", spending real money, versus taking time to complete something is completely subjective. For someone that can play five hours a day the requirements set are fine, they can spend the time and get what they want. For someone that has 5 hours a week to play those requirements might keep them from even trying at those goals, meaning they would probably lose interest in the game and just stop playing. That 5-hour-a-week player most likely would feel they can't get to their goals in a reasonable time and get to do the things they want to do.

On the opposite end, being able to "cash in" allows some players to make up time to get to a certain goal. For some people that ultimately frees up some of their time and allows them to play the game in the first place. On the macro level that means more people are involved with the game. Since "end-game" items are not reasonable in cost to outright buy it provides economic stimulation for the commodities that are used to produce those end-game items. Objectively it's a positive force.

There's obviously a large amount of bias on this topic. Players that spend tons of hours in the game to get to their goals or vanity items obviously would dislike anyone that had an easier time completing similar goals or vanity items because they want to protect their time investment. The change in thinking should be that time and monetary investments are equal. If someone wants to spend real money to get to a goal and it makes them a more committed player that is more involved with the game community how are we losing? The only percieved loss is when you try to protect a time commitment and invalidate anyone that isn't in a similar position in terms of time commitment. Having a huge time committment is more detrimental to the community, those members seem to be the most bitter, least accepting of change, and discriminatory of any community members.

There are only two arguments here masked by the "fairness" argument. Either someone is upset because they are now percieving their time commitment as a waste by comparison or they have a spending problem. "Fairness" has nothing to do with it because it isn't fair someone is locked out of parts of the game because they don't have 3-8 hours a day to play a game. The difference is people that didn't have that time for games in the past usually don't complain about it, they dealt with it or stopped playing.

So what I read here is the premise that games that allow bypassing of effort with money has no impact on the level of effort chose by developers to meet a goal in game.

To buy legendary in legal way you need quite a lot of money. I would say huge amount. Also there is pretty much no difference in buy gems to by legendary vs pay someone so she/he get this legendary for you.If someone want something here and now and have enough money to buy for it, he/she can get it.

Still who cares.

World is unfair.If some ppl want to pay to pretty much not play the game good for them.\And yes 800 gems < cost of T3 (for which we need to add cost of 6 transmutations too)

Well, thankfully Legendaries don't come as merely a singular item, but crafted through the collection of various items that can be acquired piecemeal through equal efforts of however much one is willing to play vs game time you can commit and/or stomach.

Edited by MazingerZ, 02 April 2014 - 04:22 PM.

0

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

How can you complain about someone using their VISA to buy an Aetherblade armor set, when another person could buy Twilight on the TP without ever using real money? How does that even make sense?

Basically, I'm hearing an argument against ALL cash shop items. Which is just banging your head against a wall.

Let's say a developer releases two new weapons in an FPS. These weapons are clearly balanced in that they are counters to one another. However, they are better weapons than what's available to players prior to their release. Now, you can unlock that weapon immediately with money or you can slough it out and "simply play the game" to unlock it... Is that P2W? Firstly, PvP is a different issue, but even so I would say no. Suppose there was no option to buy the weapon, but it still required time to unlock? Some players would still have advantages. (example of exactly this: AoC.)

Isn't the RMAH in D3 and its rise in popularity following its removal proof of what happens when you're tying monetary returns to game-play? The Diablo 3 RMAH was, in fact, egregiously evil, but that is a strawman here, since it has nothing to do with GW2.

No one is arguing against cash shops, ... If you claim that even cosmetic items are P2W, you ARE arguing against them.

How can you complain about someone using their VISA to buy an Aetherblade armor set, when another person could buy Twilight on the TP without ever using real money? How does that even make sense?

Basically, I'm hearing an argument against ALL cash shop items. Which is just banging your head against a wall.

It's an argument against allowing cash to affect game-play. You want that set. Fine. But make it available only to those willing to pay for it. You want a Legendary? Fine. But the entire process has to be through in-game effort. We're not talking about the buying the Aetherblade set. We're talking about the concept of converting cash->gems->gold and gold->gems and how entangling those things effects the development of rewarding game-play.

Also, you've changed my example to fit your own viewpoint. The weapon is buy-able. If the weapon weren't buyable, that'd be fine, because that's boiled down to skill and time investment that the developers decided on. A decision that is not being influenced by money, because there is no direct monetary return in unlocking the weapon.

And how does the RMAH have nothing to do with GW2? You can't call it a strawman. It did exactly what GW2 does. Give you rewards for money. Its no worse than converting gems to gold to get a Legendary off the TP and people did pay hundreds of dollars, even when PvP wasn't in D3.

0

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

So what I read here is the premise that games that allow bypassing of effort with money has no impact on the level of effort chose by developers to meet a goal in game.

You have yet to show development has been altered by cash-to-gems relationship, as well as failing to prove any measurable negative effect on the game community by allowing the cash-to-gem trade, or any validity to the claim it makes the game unfair. You have implied development has been negatively impacted, that the requirements have been continually raised to make the game such a burden to play unless you pay real money, but that hasn't been the case. These options make the game more fair, but that's really the problem you are proposing, that people without the same time commitment can also get shiny things.

So lets say the worst-case scenario actually happens. Someone buys in cash a full set of legendary weapons, pays their way to top tier armor, and clears out the gem store. How does that negatively impact me as a player that has 5 hours a day to play in an objective way?

So, I was actually arguing the opposite: it's easier to buy Gems with in-game Gold to buy armor in the gemstore, then it is to buy some in-game armor with gold.

In other words: GW2 is NOT pay to win, because gemstore items are relatively cheap.

Of course you can choose to spend real money, but that is a choice not a requirement.

Options are good. The one thing I really hate is the Black Lion chests. These are just evil, as it is basically gambling.

It works for them though. You can either spend cash or gold to get the Aetherblade set. Gems are a currency that has two different sources for generation. The Cultural armor set can only be obtained for gold. If it were equal, then people who want the Cultural armor set can pay for it without spending a time. The extra cost on the Cultural Armor set is the penalty for not engaging in micro-transactions.

They're going to get some money from people who don't have gold to convert to gems, and equally so, they can pull some players into gems->gold to overcome the extra cost of a "gold-only" set of armor in the game.

0

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

It's an argument against allowing cash to affect game-play. You want that set. Fine. But make it available only to those willing to pay for it. You want a Legendary? Fine. But the entire process has to be through in-game effort. We're not talking about the buying the Aetherblade set. We're talking about the concept of converting cash->gems->gold and gold->gems and how entangling those things effects the development of rewarding game-play.

Also, you've changed my example to fit your own viewpoint. The weapon is buy-able. If the weapon weren't buyable, that'd be fine, because that's boiled down to skill and time investment that the developers decided on. A decision that is not being influenced by money, because there is no direct monetary return in unlocking the weapon.

And how does the RMAH have nothing to do with GW2? You can't call it a strawman. It did exactly what GW2 does. Give you rewards for money. Its no worse than converting gems to gold to get a Legendary off the TP and people did pay hundreds of dollars, even when PvP wasn't in D3.

I don't see any problem with it.If you want to waste your money on NOT playing the game it's your choice. All is connected to how much your time is worth and how much "here and now" you want something ingame.

It's like making "win the game" button. pay xx$ and push to button to win the game.yay, so much p2w.But who cares really? I don't.

It's all about choice and if process which leads to a rewards is fun or not. Or if I want reward now or I can w8.

Like with buying the game on steam. You can drop retail price, 60$ and if you want the game here and now. You can w8 to get 25% discount. You can w8 even more to get 75% discount.Or you can just think that this game isn't worth the effort and I don't care about it at allBasic value is a time. Time and effort.

So lets say the worst-case scenario actually happens. Someone buys in cash a full set of legendary weapons, pays their way to top tier armor, and clears out the gem store. How does that negatively impact me as a player that has 5 hours a day to play in an objective way?

It does when that encourages future content to require either massive time-sinks or pay to bypass.

And, of course you're never going to find a smoking gun of Mike O'Brien talking about how they're adding in extra time sinks to encourage micro-transactions... but there is a long and recent history of game development outside the GW2 of companies, even some run by NCSoft and Nexon itself, designed primarily to make goals in the game more arduous while offering shortcuts with micro-transactions.

To say that GW2 is above this, while being managed by a company that engages in it through other properties, is blithe.

0

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

Also, you've changed my example to fit your own viewpoint. The weapon is buy-able. If the weapon weren't buyable, that'd be fine, because that's boiled down to skill and time investment that the developers decided on. A decision that is not being influenced by money, because there is no direct monetary return in unlocking the weapon.You missed the point. Having inequities in a PvP system is a different issue than whether you allow people to use $ to bypass time requirements. IF you tolerate gear affecting PvP, then allowing people to get to that gear faster means nothing.On the other hand, if $ were the ONLY way to get the better gear, that would be P2W.

And how does the RMAH have nothing to do with GW2? You can't call it a strawman. It did exactly what GW2 does. Give you rewards for money.No, it was very different: People could spend unlimited $ on items where Blizzard controlled the supply, and Blizzard took a cut of the proceeds. There is nothing like that in GW2.

P2W is a situation where you NEED to spend real $ to compete/win, not where you CAN spend real $ to save time.

It does when that encourages future content to require either massive time-sinks or pay to bypass.

And, of course you're never going to find a smoking gun of Mike O'Brien talking about how they're adding in extra time sinks to encourage micro-transactions... but there is a long and recent history of game development outside the GW2 of companies, even some run by NCSoft and Nexon itself, designed primarily to make goals in the game more arduous while offering shortcuts with micro-transactions.

To say that GW2 is above this, while being managed by a company that engages in it through other properties, is blithe.

Then the question is, why did they add time-sinks to GW1 where there wasn't the gem trade? Why are there time-sinks in GW2 that you can't use the gem trade to make up for? Sorry, but time-sinks are normal in games, at least most games this decade. How do you differentiate between "keep players in the game and game pacing/balance" time-sinks and "make money off the cash shop" time-sinks?

That's all secondary, though. If you feel the outcome isn't worth the input you don't do it, whether that's time or money. No one is forcing you to get "endgame" items or costumes or anything else.

Then the question is, why did they add time-sinks to GW1 where there wasn't the gem trade? Why are there time-sinks in GW2 that you can't use the gem trade to make up for?

GW1 ones were...titles? They actually scaled those back a whole lot down to tier 5 which is ~16% the way to maxing the title, not the stats, which are at full strength. Statistically maxed out gear was obtainable as level 10 and cost less than 10 platinum (which is obtainable in less than an hour of moderate gameplay). If you've got something else in mind here please elaborate.

I guess I've got a problem seeing how they equate time and money as a level playing field when spending real money is not only faster than completion through gameplay, it's easier.

The intrinsic value of both were tied to player value of components as a currency due to bank limits on platinum, it's still going on today. If there had been a valid developer added substitute to get around the 1000 platinum cap and 7 slot trade window limitation neither of them would carry the value they do. This is a case of the playerbase making it worse than it needed to be and not the developer in my view.

Any time-money exchange in near every game system that remotely resembles a free market always works out to money being the more efficient route over low-skilled but efficient farming. It should not be surprising that more people would rather grind a game than a low wage job.

The intrinsic value of both were tied to player value of components as a currency due to bank limits on platinum, it's still going on today. If there had been a valid developer added substitute to get around the 1000 platinum cap and 7 slot trade window limitation neither of them would carry the value they do.

Cut their value in half or a quarter, or account bind them, and its still significant grind... this doesn't answer Mordokai's point at all. These two were singled out as player currency against everything else precisely because they had significant intrinsic value to begin with.

Now that its here, i have no issues with how ANet has set it up. I've converted gems to gold to buy armor. I have no reserve saying that i do. But precursors and legenadaries are just too expensive in gold to justify the gem purchase. Its saved me ALOT of time, which i've dumped into playing alts.

I see many people telling MazingerZ that Guild Wars 2 isn't P2W. I see MazingerZ outlinning the reasons for his case. And then I see people telling him that it is only P2W when it is compulsory, or that it simply doesn't matter enough to have our knickers in a twist.

Same formula used in every topic of this nature in the entire history of Guru. It's getting tiresome.

Can someone tell me of a true P2W game, so that I can contrast it with Guild Wars 2? Because it is rather pointless having a term to determine if a game suffers from from this problem, specially if it lacks even one of the unwritten rules of P2W-dom, which everyone but me seems to be an expert of and is able to tell without a doubt this isn't the case for our husk of a game we discuss on a daily baisis.

It's been almost two bloody years of this charade. I haven't spent a dime on this game past the inicial purpose as it gives me no reason to do so, while those that are spending real money ate better off than me, with their Legendaries and their full Ascended gear and Cox Box Cosmetics. Surely they have no advantage over me, and the hundreds of dungeons I have to run just to maintain two characters on my group's Fractals team. Suuuuureeee...

"This is the essence of 'p2win'. To pay to meet whatever victory conditions you've set for yourself."

I completely disagree with that definition. You are not obligated to pay anything: if you can acquire any item by simply playing the game, then it is hard to say it is 'pay to win'.

You might still have a case if the effort required to get the item via playing was SO huge that nobody would ever do it, but that isn't obviously true here.

BTW, by your definition, a better example of P2W would be a paid expansion, assuming you couldn't buy it via gems.

Note that I'm not necessarily a huge fan of cash shops, but as a realist I'm willing to accept them, as long as they stick to items that are cosmetic or simply provide convenience. If we start blurring the line of what P2W means, we'll end up in a worse state. Because cash shops aren't going away from MMOs, even ones with subs.

You seem confused. "Pay to win" means pay to win. It does not mean pay to not lose. Nor does it mean pay for content.

But but but Candy Crush Saga isn't competitive PvP! It can't be P2WIN!

/s

2

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

It's been almost two bloody years of this charade. I haven't spent a dime on this game past the inicial purpose as it gives me no reason to do so, while those that are spending real money ate better off than me, with their Legendaries and their full Ascended gear and Cox Box Cosmetics. Surely they have no advantage over me, and the hundreds of dungeons I have to run just to maintain two characters on my group's Fractals team. Suuuuureeee...

I don't have full, nor even one piece of, ascended gear. Its still to expensive to pay for the mats to do it, so you don't hafta worry there. BUT, i love my "Cox Box Cosmetics"....It makes me all "Cox Boxy" inside when i log into my Kryta geared ranger and oogle at how much of a badass he is. Either way, i'm not OP. You'd most likely hand my ranger his ass in a nicely wrapped Cox Box if we were ever to step into PvP against each other, so yeah, its dumb. lmao

EDIT: I take that back, i do have ascended gear from the laurals and the guild comms i get each week. I also ended up being able to craft the ascended spinal blades, so i do have those. Just a note though: I have not seen an increase in DPS, nor durability by doing so. My 100B still only maxes out at around 15-30k damage total.

I see many people telling MazingerZ that Guild Wars 2 isn't P2W. I see MazingerZ outlinning the reasons for his case. And then I see people telling him that it is only P2W when it is compulsory, or that it simply doesn't matter enough to have our knickers in a twist.

Same formula used in every topic of this nature in the entire history of Guru. It's getting tiresome.

Can someone tell me of a true P2W game, so that I can contrast it with Guild Wars 2? Because it is rather pointless having a term to determine if a game suffers from from this problem, specially if it lacks even one of the unwritten rules of P2W-dom, which everyone but me seems to be an expert of and is able to tell without a doubt this isn't the case for our husk of a game we discuss on a daily baisis.

It's been almost two bloody years of this charade. I haven't spent a dime on this game past the inicial purpose as it gives me no reason to do so, while those that are spending real money ate better off than me, with their Legendaries and their full Ascended gear and Cox Box Cosmetics. Surely they have no advantage over me, and the hundreds of dungeons I have to run just to maintain two characters on my group's Fractals team. Suuuuureeee...

Well, I actually agree that Legendaries should not be for sale. I totally hate that vertical progression is in GW2. But that's another issue...

You cannot buy Ascended gear on the TP, can you?

And Black Lion Chests... don't get me started. But the skins are cosmetic.

Wait.... are you being sarcastic?

Anyway, if GW2 is pay 2 win, then any game that offers a way to turn real money into in-game currency is pay to win. Even WoW is p2w, b/c there is a pet you can buy for real money and sell for gold.

Oh yeah and you can finish it without paying a thing... it can't possibly be pay2win

That must mean its a bastion of all that is right and just in game development, like GW2!

/obviousfalseanalogy

1

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

Cut their value in half or a quarter, or account bind them, and its still significant grind... this doesn't answer Mordokai's point at all. These two were singled out as player currency against everything else precisely because they had significant intrinsic value to begin with.

It leads me to question why you'd want enough skins that this is an issue with cheaper alternatives for HoM credit. Grind is subjective so i'll just say that I don't agree, money was very easy to come by in GW1, and leave it at that.